Fish and Chip Ride

[Millietant]

As we're at the height of British Summertime (54 degrees F !!!), I headed out with my pal Jim on a ride to have a "fish and chip" lunch at the seaside. As I live in the area that is the furthest from the ocean of anywhere of the UK, that meant a return journey of between about 320 to 400 miles, depending on the destination and the route we took.

Given that the forecast for the day was for most of the rain to fall in the East, we decided to head West, to the town of Aberystwyth on the west Wales coast. Nothing especially spectacular about Aberystwyth, except the roads to get there 

In total we rode just a hair short of 350 miles and only got slightly wet first thing in the morning and late in the afternoon. We took in some of the best roads Mid Wales has to offer, including the A483 (Newtown to Cross Gates) the A44 (Aberystwyth to Worcester), the A470 (Rhayader to Llangurig) and the A4120 (Aberystwyth to Devil's Bridge) and the only issue we faced over the whole day was traffic congestion on some of our favourite bits......too many tourists and "Driving Miss Daisy" tourers.

Our first stop for a cuppa was at a nice hotel at 100 miles. 2nd stop was in Aberystwyth for fuel at 175 miles, where I managed to squeeze 13.91 litres into my tank (57mpg) - continuing the recent trend of fantastic fuel mileage - at that point my gauge was showing about 1/3 full, which seems to indicate that its pretty accurate 

Fish and Chips was had outdoors on the promenade (with riding gear still on, due to the temperature) before we headed off to a well known bikers stop (Devil's Bridge), but it was too crowded to actually get down to the bridge. The last leg was around 145 miles non stop to home, enjoying the flowing A44 for much of the way.

All in all a great day to be out on the bike and the FJ just lapped it up 

I did manage to get a little video footage of some of the ride and will post up a link when I get it sorted out.

[Millietant]

OK....so..........here's a link to some video footage I managed to get on today's ride. In total it's 28 mins long (and 3.7GB), so I doubt anyone will want to watch it all.

I had a couple of problems (again!!), with the camera mount to the petrol tank breaking loose (so I kept having to re-attach it on-the-move) and I've realised that the camera isn't the one that came with the case I'm using and it's very slightly smaller than the original. So...it's loose in the plastic frame and is rattling and vibrating - I think that's also why it sometimes shuts itself down if I hit a bump.

Anyway, even just watching a couple of minutes and skipping through on FFWD, I hope you can get a flavour (traffic, weather, the number of bends per mile and the overall road condition). Jim is happy as this is the first time hes ever seen any footage of the trike from nehind 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Y8S991PlwOfxqsBAryRZx5dueWj_nB4L/view?usp=sharing

[krusty]

I have had the pleasure of driving Welsh roads and have twice been to Aberystwyth. Once to visit a friend and a later trip to the National Library to do some genalogy research as my wife's father was born in Porth. I recall one day driving down from the Brecon Beacons (destination Pontypridd) and coming up behind a group of riders on a ride out on veteran bikes, girder forks, belt drives, gas lamps etc.. Not unusual except that it was a cold, cloudy, drizzly day. Welsh riders must be tough old geezers.

[Millietant]

Ah, you were there in the height of summer too Krusty

[red]

Millietant,

Okay, now ya done it.  Now I must go after some fish and chips, and it's all your fault.  Here in landlocked Utah, decent fish will be scarce, but I heard about a place that the proprietors think is good, authentic, or both.  Almost nobody here could have a valid opinion, either way.  To Be Determined . . .  

I'll be off.

[krusty]

Yep. July.  

[krusty]

Yep. July.  

Dang. I spelled Becons wrong.
As it happens, today I'm having fish and chips for lunch my one allowed lockdown visitor.

[ribbert]

OK....so..........here's a link to some video footage I managed to get on today's ride.....even just watching a couple of minutes and skipping through on FFWD

Haha, I watched it in it's entirety, we are still in hard lockdown here and riding a bike is starting to feel like something I did in a former life.

Dean, how would you describe the traffic in the video (light, average, busy...) in the context of a typical ride in the UK?

Noel

[Millietant]

I'm glad you stuck with it Noel.

I've not ridden that stretch of road before, but Jim knows it well (he's a truck driver) and he says that was pretty normal for a mid week morning. Had i been my own i would have made more the overtaking opportunities, but riding with the trike i have to sacrifice something for the company 

Overall it's typical of traffic volumes i generally encounter on rides, but i do still know routes which are quieter but they're becoming harder and harder to find. That's the main reason i took up track riding and i gave that up once it became so popular that it was flooded with idiots acting as mobile roadblocks on their Ducati's, R1's and GSXR's.

That road goes from nowhere to nowhere (A483 Newtown to Crossgates) and there were no events on to bring in extra traffic. However, up in North (where i was born), traffic is generally a lot lighter, especially out in the countryside.

It's just the end result of almost 70 million people packed onto a tiny island !